Campaign of the Month:
November 2016

X-Com: Defiance

Sun shines on the Hawthorne Grill as your team approaches. Large glass windows reveal a modest crowd occupying the high quality synthetic chairs, tables, and booths inside. All seating surfaces are covered with a comfortable vinyl padding that blends into the overall restaurant design. Cheap mass-produced art in plastic frames hangs from the walls and plastic plants dot the restaurant.

Stepping inside, you see a “wait to be seated” sign, but a whistle and wave draws your attention to the Johnson’s table. You easily make your way through the restaurant to join Sid. “Glad you could make it. Have a seat. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Sid Gambetti. Pleased to meet ya. Feel free to get anything off the value menu, on me.”

An ork waitress with the name tag “Lola” approaches the table to take your orders.

As the waitress walks away to place your orders, Sid takes a large gulp of coffee and proceeds to explain the offer. “I guess we can get started. The job is an extraction job outside the US. Transportation to and from are included. The targets are willing and are going to be in a vulnerable place ready for the taking. The targets are not to be hurt. You rendezvous with them, then make your way to the docks and you are home free. The pay is a valuable artifact known as the Phaistos Dis if you are interested.”

Sid calls out to the waitress “Garçon? Little coffee here!” She returns and fills his cup, commenting “Garçon means boy” before walking away. He looks back to the team and asks “Any questions?” before slurping a drink.

“All-righty then, I think you have all the info you need. I need to go drain the lizard and hit the bricks. If you have any more questions hit me up on the comm. Trust me, it will be awesome—you guys are gonna storm in there like the last action heroes on the planet.” With that, Sid scurries away from the table to the restrooms.

As you start to look to your other teammates and discuss preparations for the upcoming mission, two patrons at another table jump up waving Ruger Super Warhawks.

“Everybody be cool, this is a robbery!” screams the blond male human in the Hawaiian shirt. This is quickly followed by the red-headed female human screaming “Any of you fragging pricks move and I’ll execute every mother fragging last one of you!”

gh0st’s commlink starting ringing. Switching to AR he say it was Allan. That could only mean Allan had broken some electronic device and wanted it fixed or there was a job. Either way he was getting paid.

“Hello Allan, what’s up? You lock yourself out of one of you commlinks again?”

“No I got us a job. Meet us at the…..”

Suddenly the commcall gets interupted and an icon of a tough looking paperboy riding a bike appears, what looks like an Initech debt collection satchel worn over his chest.

“Four week, 20 stories, that’s 2 nuyen plius tip.”

“What the hell, I’m not giving you a dime!”

“I didn’t ask for a dime, 2 nuyen.” The icon says in a threatening voice like drawing a switchblade from it’s pocket. As he depresses the button on the switchblade a comb rather than a blade pops out.

Having enough of this you go to switch off your AR by closing the virtual door of your house, the icon sticks his foot in the door link-locking you in AR.

Travelling down the underground tunnels of the Denver airport, you’re blinded by the sudden eruption of arcane light covering every color in the spectrum, including a few you didn’t realize you could see. As your vision recovers, the lights swirl together, forming the largest rift you’ve seen so far.

You steady yourselves and get ready for whatever manner of insanity is about to break through but nothing comes. Instead, the lights begin to lash out like whips. Shawn’s astral perception shows the artifact you are following has gone into the rift likely an hour or two ago. Knowing the only way to retrieve the artifact is to step into the rift you do so.

Your previous surroundings disappeared in a flash of light. As sight returns you’re barely able to tell. You’re not blind but the darkness around you is so deep it almost feels like it. Low-light struggles to make out the people around you as you prepare to defend yourself. Thermographic shows the mostly familiar shapes of your fellow runners, trees ten meters away in both directions, and a highly reflective pair of metallic lines running along the ground at the center of the trees. In one direction it disappears around a bend, but you can’t gauge the distance, the other, it disappears into a blackness. Looking around some more you notice that the shape of Mako seems to be missing, instead a much smaller form of a human stands in his place.

The air smells clean, cleaner than any air you are used to, but also musty and damp. Like you’re inside a cave, but looking upwards you can see small dots, maybe stars, but something about them is off. Your ears pick up the startled breathing of those with you, a slight rustling-slurp that seems to be coming from the leaves or something within the trees, and a distant vibration that seems to be getting louder.

The rumbling grows louder, but remains indistinct, while the rustling-slurps gain more slurp and less rustle. The inky blackness within the trees looks to be writhing when that darkness suddenly rolls and flows out towards you. An inky arm launches forward, slapping the ground in front out you and filling the air with a sharp scent of chlorine. As it retracts the ground where it hit sizzles and froths.

We approach in the van to the “haunted” house that the locals in the area directed us to. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of electronics nearby. I drop into VR and take a look around. Not surprisingly there is a host running silently. I grab a mark and enter. Looks pretty much like the interior of the house might. A bunch of cameras, a few maglocks, scanners, drones and more all controlled by 2 nodes within the host. I grab a mark on the node which seems to be linked to the cameras. I send the feeds to the rest of the team. Then focus back on the rest of the contents in the host. I see a decker’s persona looking about. I try to grab a mark but fail – in return he gets a mark on me and notices I’m there. I try to data spike him but he fights me off. We exchange another round of data spikes and both get through. Mine was laced with biofeedback. Guess he didn’t like that so he logs. I send a last message through the node to unlock all the maglocks and then exit and jack before the ICE finds me.

“We need to get moving now. I messed up, they know we are coming.”, I say and André hits the gas and screeches to a stop by the gate. I see André dose with Kamikaze as I jump out the door and head toward the gate.

I spot a couple of drones heading in my direction. One takes a shot but I grab a bit of cover by the gate. The others advance and damage one of the drones before a couple of big, cyber’d mean nasty dogs rush Mako. He goes down again. Damn he falls hard. A bullet fires almost straight down between André and I. No clue who was targeted. André takes a shot and I hear a whispered “Damn right!” through the comms.

Shawn summons his second sadistic bunny which decides to feast upon one of the dogs. We manage to take down the 2 drones, both dogs and the killer bunny and head for the door.

A Renraku manservant drone takes a shot at André. I give it a slash and it falls and sparks fiercely. 20K nuyen down the drain. I send the video to Roy and promptly receive a “God damn it Grace! I can’t believe you did that and ….” I ignore the rest of the message and suspend further messages from Roy.

André opens the next door and throws in an explosive grenade. In return some turreted drone opens fire. Then a guard opens up with submachine gun fire. André looks to be in pretty bad shape.

I walk in and slash the guard pretty badly and Mako follows up with a punch that sends him flying into the corner. The others manage to take down the wheeled turret drone and I hear a scream from the next room.

André opens the next door and narrowly avoids getting hit by another Renraku manservant. I drop into VR and data spike the drone and he drops like a brick. Before I can exit VR, I see on Mako’s video feed that he entered the room and punched the downed decker/rigger. When I get there, it is immediately obvious that he’s dead. There’s an RCC that Roy will most likely want. My scan of the body pulls up an implanted deck, data jack and cybereyes. I open the access hatch to the deck and then look up to see Shawn casting a spell. Another damn bunny appears just outside the door and it heads right for André and stabs with the injectors on its hind legs. André goes down. We take out the bunny but Shawn is casting again. I point my sword towards him in a questioning motion and he quickly says “Antitoxin”.

Luckily no more bunnies appear.

“Umm guys, there’s a conversation in the guard’s commlink from yesterday and today…

Sent: Keeper, there is a Trog P.I. investigating around the neighborhood recently looking for that dandelion eater we nabbed for the ritual last month. What do you want done?

Keeper: If he comes around again kill him, nobody will miss a dirty trog. Also we need another sacrifice for the ritual, this one needs to be magically active.

Sent: Disabled the P.I.. Looks like he was magically active. Will he suffice for the ritual?

Keeper: He should suffice, Trogs have sentience even if only barely.", Grace looks nervously towards Mako but then realizes he wasn’t listening and is already on his way down to the basement towards the chanting. Yeah, of course there is chanting…

The Aurora Warrens, the Mile High Sports Complex or back to the airport those seem to be the spots with the largest rift activity. After a bit of conversation, you decide to check out the Aurora Warrens next after Mako wakes up.

As you drive through Denver, you see a number of signs that meta-humans aren’t too welcome in the city. It is probably best that Roy isn’t with you and that Mako was unconscious. The lemon aid stand may have experienced a drive-by shooting.

After a rest and some magical healing you head out to the Aurora Warrens, while most of the Warrens have been abuzz with all the rift activity in Denver, the neighborhood you’ve been directed to does not share that quality. In fact, its level of quiet is quite eerie after all the action. Rundown suburban homes line the curvy streets of what was once an upper-class utopia. While eerie and quiet, it is not empty. Brief glimpses of residents huddled inside the shadows of homes and shanties built from sheds, along with small tent clusters on several properties show that life still clings to this quiet suburban refuge.

A few pointed questions asked of the few sane locals able to answer them, points the finger at a creepy old house with a lot of bad juju.

The rundown Victorian style home seems to both blend with its neighbors while at the same time standing out. The entire neighborhood consists of large homes of various styles, Victorian encompassing this and at least two others you can see, allowing the large manor to blend among the other suburban mansions. It’s the grounds that seem off. The other homes lacked fences or build them where the home could still be ogled by those who passed.
The manor you’ve been pointed toward is surrounded by a two-meter stone wall tipped with wrought-iron spikes. A narrow hedge grows wild on the outside, while beyond you can see the grasses and bushes of the lawn have overgrown the space between. Two heavy metal gates offer entry. The smaller sits slightly bent but still closed, though the path beyond is completely overgrown, giving the image of the house rising from among the tall grasses. The larger gate, built for vehicles, was rolled a quarter of the way open before whatever tragedy took the last residents of this place. Beyond this gate, you can seen a half-grown-over drive leading to a large four-car garage designed to emulate the look of the housebut lacking any chance of matching the age.

This row of the neighborhood backs up to the steep slope of a man-made mount overgrown with weeds, bushes, and small trees clinging to their angular roots. The pile of dirt and rock obviously intended to create the feel of a mountain home while offering the intended residents, likely the richest of the local rich, more privacy.

The sounds of a firefight start to be heard, slowly growing louder although somewhat muted as if heard through water. When Grace realizes what it is, she attempts to draw her pistol and sword but her cyberarm clangs off something metal.

Where the hell is Alan and Godzilla, Grace thinks. Something seems wrong with that idea but she isn’t exactly sure what just now.

She shakes her head a bit to clear her head and realizes her eyes are closed. Oh that makes more sense, the Godzilla movie start screen is cycling on the screen of the Valkyrie module. She presses the button to open it up, climbs out and heads to the door of the van. She pulls up André’s video feed and GPS coordinates. From the video feed, she can see the fight is over and André is looking at the body of some alien mutated ork. She sends an “omw” message and heads into the weapons shop. Luckily Mako manages to avoid throwing a knife in her direction. Guess he didn’t understand what “omw” meant.

There is chanting which seems to be coming from down the stairs so André, Mako and Grace start down the stairs. As they near the bottom of the stairs, a toilet flushes and a door opens. André shoots and the guard is knocked back into the washroom. Grace rushes forward saying, “Gross! Wash your hands next time asshat!” and then slashes him with her sword.

“Gross!”, Grace backpedals as the guard explodes in acid. Luckily her armor protects her but the acid seems to be eating at it.

Mako moves forward and attempts to kick the solid metal security door open. It bends a bit and the card reader starts to spark but the door remains closed. Shawn runs down the stairs and works the keycard over the card reader a few times before the door opens.

Another one of the muton orks, grabs a big alien gun, like the one that shot Roy and Alan, and rushes towards the door. Grace looks in AR at that big alien gun, switches to the attack configuration on her deck and dataspikes the gun. The gun sparks, lets out a puff of smoke and all the lights on it turn off.

There are 4 other guys in the room working on a ritual. One breaks off and spits acid at Mako.

The muton throws down the gun in disgust and punches at Mako with his spurs. They proceed to punch at each other ineffectively exchanging blows.

Rifts opens behind Grace and a creature with large arms and a huge mouth pulls her into a tight hold, while a muscular blue humanoid races after Midnight. Grace manages to free her arm and stab the Maw with her sword. Luckily her armor saves her once again as the creature tries to take a bite. Grace stabs again and the creature dies while Midnight fires burst fire into blue giant.

Shawn casts a stun bolt at the mages in the other room. A rift opens up and a fanged monkey appears, runs and hides deeper in the room around the corner.

“You stupid monkey”, Shawn screams.

The mages in the other room seem to be having difficulties, maybe with the monkey?! One of them charges one of the others, grabs his medallion and then runs off in the direction of the monkey. Another grabs the muton’s big gun from the ground and heads in the same direction. Another couple of rifts open. A glowing ball appears from the one near André and a creature with long sharp claws appears from the other near one of the mages.

The glowing ball engulfs André briefly and his skin starts to turn yellow. The creature with the claws attacks the mage and the mage freezes as if turned into a statue. Another mage is frozen by the creature before it attacks the muton.

Mako picks himself up for the second time during his boxing match with the muton. André kills the gargoyle like creature before it can get to any of us. Grace finally downs the muton with a fourth strike from her sword.

Midnight rushes forward and downs one of the frozen mages. Mako rushes forward and punches the other frozen mage into a wall. André turns the corner and fires at some black nightmare of a creature with long tentacle like arms. It falls and dies but unfortunately that frees up the 2 mages who were fighting it and one of them launches a stun ball. Grace charges the other and impales him with her sword. André takes out the last one.

Technicoloured Dreams

For all the conspiracy theory that Roy had talked about regarding the Denver airport, your trip through it was uneventful and no immediate signs of an underground alien city. Probably for the best as Roy would be even more unbearable if he was right about any of it.

As you leave the airport, a message on your ’links directs you to the VIP bar on the fifteenth floor of the Brown Place hotel, telling you to look for the human with a white feather pin on his lapel.

The bar is packed, mostly with suits. A prevailing feeling of tension permeates the room as the suits deal with the current situation through copious consumption of drinks while bodyguards stand nearby. It’s easy to see who the bosses are and who’s the help; the help is sober. Among the suits are individuals who definitely have that runner vibe about them. Guess Mr. Johnson wants to hide in plain sight.

Speaking of, it doesn’t take long to find your Mr. Johnson. Sitting at a booth near the end of a small satellite bar, his pin is easy to find. As you approach he flashes you a million-nuyen smile of perfect teeth and activates a small area jammer for good measure.

“Thank you for coming. Things in this city are a bit frazzled of late with those rifts appearing everywhere. One must adapt and improvise. Now to the matter at hand. I need specialists to handle some reconnaissance and investigation. If you do this right, you shouldn’t have to fire a single shot. But I won’t lie; the current situation here is dangerous. That’s why I’m offering thirty thousand nuyen each for your efforts. Of course, you’ll want to ask more questions, and I’ll say that I can’t tell until you agree to the job. So how about we just get to the part where we negotiate the price you’ll need to take the job?”

After some negotiation on the price, “Excellent!” Mr. Johnson exclaims. “Now if you’ll allow me to send some data files to your comms. These files contain all the information I have regarding your assignment. Most of what you’ll be investigating are persons, or places, of interest. Do them in whatever order you desire. No detail is too small so learn whatever you can about them and report back to me. A contact number is also included. And before you ask, they come from a former associate who, wait … what’s that?”

Mr. Johnson jabs a manicured finger towards the bar as a jerking line of white light forms under an unsuspecting patron who’s completely unaware, likely because of the five shots of whiskey he’s already downed. The line surges with energy and what can only be described as a tear opens up. The bar patron and his stool are quickly swallowed with a muffled scream as unearthly light shines in from the tear. Five seconds later, several small things come rushing out.

Looking like cute cartoon animals from an ancient 2-D film but dipped in various swirls of neon paint. They hop, flutter, or waddle near the edge of the hole as another patron, also quite drunk, comments on “how cute” they are and reaches out to touch a florescent orange squirrel.

The squirrel then reveals a series of serrated teeth and tentacles and jumps toward the patron’s throat. The rest of the animals follow suit, attacking anyone nearby with a combination of razor-sharp teeth, claws, talons, tentacles or a combination of the above. Bodyguards or anyone sufficiently armed opens fire.

The last run brought down some heat for everyone involved (if you could just remember what that run was). You figure that in a week or so, the offended party will move on to the next big thing and you’ll be back in biz proper. Until then, you’ve settled into your squat for a break from the world. With corn popped, drink mixed, remote fully charged, and nothing better to do, you settle in for a nighttime trid marathon of classics and remakes in your comfy chair.

Your eyes snap open when you hear your commlink chirp, and you realize you must have drifted to sleep sometime during the night. Dawn breaks, and daylight peeks through the window. The trid marathon is still running, so you silence it and answer the call.

The image of the dwarf that appears is starting to go bald and hiding it poorly by wearing a ponytail. A chrome datajack is apparent in his temple, and a large diamond stud earring rests in his ear. He’s obviously holding his commlink in one hand and an obnoxious lit cigar in the other.

“Omae Allan! Didn’t wake you up, did I? It’s me—Sid Gambetti! Word is that you are laying low in Vegas, which is why I’d like to discuss a little out-of-town biz. Meet me at the Hawthorne Grill for some breakfast in an hour if you’re game. Ciao babe!”

With that, the image of the sleazy dwarf fixer disappears from your feed.

For some, reason you have this image if two donkey headed humanoid spirits guarding a disk that you had just grabbed, but you can’t seem to place the memory. Maybe it was just a scene from a bad 80s trid. Time to call the crew, Sid’s got you a job.

Following the astral tether from the fake disk Allan guides Roy toward Bosnia. As you get close to the final location a radio signal comes through the Venture’s speakers

“Unauthorized aircraft turn back or be fired upon by authority of Aztechnology Corporate Defence Force.”

“We can return later flying under the radar once we triangulate the location and learn exactly what we are flying into.” Roy says to the rest of you as he turns the plane around.

Eventually, Roy lands in a small airstrip outside of Sarajevo. Along the horizon you see military helicopters flying to the north, and closer, large cargo jets unloading gear onto trucks. You quickly notice Aztechnology logos on the trucks.

Guards patrol the streets in heavy armour with assault rifles slung over their shoulders. Armbands for officers list which merc company they work for. In other places, the blue helmets and body armour clearly call out UN forces striving to keep the peace. A nearby hotel has boards covering a dozen windows on the ground floor, and pockmarks from nearby explosions scar the plascrete walls. The Bosnian war may be long over but things aren’t exactly safe.

“Nothing but hills out that way…wait that’s not right.” gh0st says.“I think it may be the site of the debunked Pyramid of the Sun.”

“Found an article about Semir Osmanagić dated March 1, 2017, I’ll send you the link.”

Pseudoscientist Semir Osmanagić claims a series of triangular-shaped hills in his native Bosnia, are artificial pyramids that are bigger and older than those in Egypt.
Despite mainstream archaeologists saying they are just natural rock formations, Mr Osmanagic has made another bold claim that he has found Nikola Tesla’s so-called “torison fields of standing energy” at the Bosnian Pyramids site, which means we could now “communicate with aliens”.

Mr Telsa was a Serbian-American inventor, physicist, and futurist, who contributed to the design of the AC electricity supply system in 1888.

His ideas became more left-field and experimental towards the end of the 1800s, and he devised the theory of “standing waves” of energy coming from Earth that meant electricity could be transmitted wirelessly over long distances.

Mr Osmanagić has claimed the alleged discovery at one of the “34,000 year old” pyramids he calls the Pyramid of the Sun “changes the history of planet” and could lead to intergalactic communication.

He wrote: "The discovery of Tesla’s standing waves at the top of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun— which are believed to travel faster than the speed of light, while not losing strength as they pass through cosmic bodies—prove the existence of something referred to as a cosmic web or cosmic internet which allow for a immediate intergalactic communication throughout the universe.

“You want to guess which corp just recently hired Semir as an archeologist? So maybe, the whole Bosnian Pyramid thing is another carefully constructed alien conspiracy like the Denver airport. Just hiding in plain sight.” Roy interjects

“Eh man, maybe the artifact is what what is giving off that torison field thing?” Smoke suggests.

Damn Roy!

“Damn! Roy was right. Denver airport does look like a swastika from up here.” Grace remarks.

“You hear Roy talk about it and it is the hub of all conspiracy theories. Apparently, there is a stone dedication marker for a time capsule buried under an American flag at the south end of the terminal mentioning the ‘New World Airport Commission.’ The strangest thing about this is that the New World Airport Commission doesn’t exist. Roy argues that the New World Airport Commission really refers to the New World Order because its design features the square and compasses symbol associated with the Freemasons.” Andre adds laughing.

“He did mention a funny story about the airport to me. He mentioned something about Blucifer, a 32-foot-tall sculpture of a wild, cerulean-hued horse rearing up in anger. The eyes glow red at night, but that is just one hint of its evil energy. The giant horse killed its creator, sculptor Luis Jiménez, before it was even finished being made. That story always makes me chuckle.” Mako said chuckling.

“And don’t get him started on the murals, he swears they are foretelling a biological warfare to impose the New World Order. Take the markings that are beneath one of the biological-warfare-themed mural include a mining cart with the initials “Au” and “Ag” on it. To me, they are clearly the symbols for gold and silver. To Roy, they represent an abbreviation for the ‘Australian Antigen,’ a deadly strain of hepatitis that could be used as a weapon in biological warfare. " Shawn says laughing.

“Even, I’ve heard some of his stories.” Midnight says. “Including the one about the unused tunnels underneath the airport leading to underground cities populated by aliens.”